Green Peace Leader Rags on Solar Power

[Besoeker]

Originally Posted by LMagic007

You are just rehashing old subsidy arguments that have been discredited before, over and over. Nothing new in what you are raising about subsidies there.

No argument. I was just pointing out that a decision on whether to build a power will take account of what sibsidies are available. That would apply whatever type of plant was to be constructed.

Originally Posted by LMagic007

My point about 70% capacity factor is just reflecting government views on the potential of Solar Thermal.

My point about the 70% capacity is that it cannot represent the plant as a whole.

[Besoeker]

Originally Posted by LMagic007

Again this is misleading as the post of the quote from this other blogger was talking about land use and to talk about land use to build an argument of comparing technologies, you need to consider overall land use for it to be seen as credible.

I wasn't comparing technologies.
It was just a simple calculation on the area of a nuclear power station in UK which corroborates the figures cited by Wobs for the same thing.
That's all.

[LMagic007]

Originally Posted by Besoeker

No argument. I was just pointing out that a decision on whether to build a power will take account of what sibsidies are available. That would apply whatever type of plant was to be constructed.

Naturally.

Originally Posted by Besoeker

My point about the 70% capacity is that it cannot represent the plant as a whole.

You would have to speak to NREL, Sandia or others directly on that aspect, to get their view on what they mean more specifically. I won't speculate beyond that. 70% capacity factor means, 70% capacity factor until shown to mean anything else. It's evident NREL is talking about plants.

As the cost of thermal storage is reduced, future parabolic trough plants could yield capacity factors greater than 70%, competing directly with future baseload combined cycle plants or coal plants.

NREL: TroughNet - Parabolic Trough Power Plant Market, Economic Assessment and Deployment

If you have doubts, best speak to them directly, to ascertain exactly what they mean, but their statement is fairly clear, otherwise their language use might then be deemed inappropriate. I'm reading what's written by NREL and that's fairly clear.

[LMagic007]

Originally Posted by Besoeker

I wasn't comparing technologies.
It was just a simple calculation on the area of a nuclear power station in UK which corroborates the figures cited by Wobs for the same thing.
That's all.

Indeed, I accept that, ( nobody is contending the specific calculations ) but the figures cited by Wobs are figures from a blog on another web site, used to compare the land used by various power generation technologies, namely solar, wind and nuclear.

The point I make here is that comparing on site power generation land requirements is one thing ( nice to know ), but that in itself does not yield the most meangful information when comparing the different power generation industries overall land requirements. The blog talks about environmental footprints and land use.

The question in that blog was

How much land area is required for Solar vs. Nuclear?

The Blue Marble: Pro-Nuke? Anti-Nuke? Talk About It With the Experts

The answer as outlined by Wobs in quote form in this forum and thread, taken from this other web site blog which was originally posted by a "Barry Wallace " then refers to this comparison of presumably power generation site land usage in acres per megawatt.

The problem is that this question posed by this blogger is very general and thus implies an overall generality about the comparison between solar and nuclear in terms of land use. The other problem is that this blogger then responds with calculations that appear specific to the generation site only and not to other aspects of the respective power generation industries in terms of land use. Whether this is deliberate to create a biased argument or whether simply an oversight, I can't say, but the fact is it does create a misconception of land use by the respective power generation industries, which reflects nuclear energy's land use more favourably than it might otherwise do, if all ancillary industry factors were taken into account. Thus it is in effect misleading to the advantage of the nuclear perspective on land use.

As I said, that's nice to know but it does not offer a fair and reasonable comparison between power generation for reasons already explained several times in this thread. Namely nuclear energy industry land use for uranium mining, processing, generation, re-processing, storage and log term waste disposal. As also indicated, the US Department of Energy's own figures suggest 5 to 10 acres per megawatt for the nuclear power industry. I presume on this basis they account for a broader range of factors in terms of overall land usage for the nuclear power industry.

Just comparing power generation aspect of land use alone, does not reflect in a fair and reasonable and relevant way the overall land use aspects of the differing power generation industries. Thus it is in fact misleading in it's representation when used in terms of meaningful comparison to ascertain the overall land footprint for the technologies.

Thus; When that general non-specific question was posed;

How much land area is required for Solar vs. Nuclear?

Appropriately the answer should be of a broad and general nature, in terms of overall industry land use for the respective power generation industries. Unfortunately the blogger's answer was specific to a question that was general. This unreasonably skewed the interpretation of that answer to favour nuclear in terms of land use. The US government figures further more show up this deficiency in representation.

[Wobs]

Originally Posted by LMagic007

The Lazy Environmentalist: Eco-footprint: Nuclear Power Station v's Wind Farm

It's interesting to note the theoretical 92 miles squared example used by industry to present a conceptual scale perspective for Solar Thermals potential, in the context of nuclear energy storage. This 92 miles squared I think approximates about 5,416,960 acres of land. Less than half of the land used for the Yucca Mountain (Nevada) nuclear waste repository. Just interesting at a conceptual level, that's all. On this basis, you could effectively double the amount of land used by Solar Thermal power generation to 10,833,920 acres and still fall under the land usage of Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository alone, let alone nuclear / uranium mining, processing and generation land requirements.

Interesting. Also interestnig that Yucca Mountain region was once volcanic from a now-extinct caldera-forming supervolcano. Lets hope it stays that way.



Earthquakes In The Vicinity Of Yucca Mountain

Yucca Mountain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just interesting.

You'll warn me if you ever plan to use some numbers that are actually comparable won't you.

Another interesting aspect in terms of land use of the nuclear industry; Apparently the Chernobyl nuclear accident contaminated 160,000 square kilometres of land. Admittedly the risk of accident might be lower in the West, but it's interesting none the less. i.e. this is 400 km squared being about 250 miles squared. So one major nuclear accident could also erase the possible credits gained, if there were any ( and it already seems there isn't based on the Yucca Mountain example ), from nuclear energy in terms of land used in worst case scenarios, such as nuclear accidents. It seems evident that long term, land use for nuclear industry is significantly higher than we might think. If you factor in one moderate nuclear accident say every 100 years for a Western nuclear powered nation, then you can get some interesting land impact / use extrapolations.

See my comment above.

One mine supplies uranium for many nuclear plants.
One Yucca Mountain installation services just about all nuclear plants in the US.

Your citing of Chernobyl is evidence of your ignorance.

BBC NEWS | Business | Nuclear clean-up 'to cost £70bn'

Sellafield attack 'could be worse than Chernobyl' | UK news | The Guardian

Again make of that what you will.

Clean up of out of date nuclear sites "to cost £60billion". Thats for quite a number of sites:
Berkeley
Bradwell
Calder Hall
Capenhurst
Chapelcross
Culham
Dounreay
Dungeness A
Harwell
Hinkley Point A
Hunterston A
Oldbury
Sellafield
Sizewell A
Springfields
Trawsfynydd
Windscale
Winfrith
Wylfa

Just to keep you up to speed, modern plants must have a decommissioning plan, complete with a bond to pay for it. Its similar to most large industrial installations throughout Europe that are built these days, so citing decommissioning costs for some old plants is meangingless, as modern designs account for this, and therefore need to be more efficient in that respect. Anyone who says differently has an axe to grind.

As for Yucca, well those Government opinions that you value for solar technology when it suits you has said (by geologists) that Yucca is a suitable site.

From the wiki page you put up we have:
"Most geologists that have worked at the site still maintain that the geology will adequately slow the rate of waste seepage to protect water supplies even if the local climate becomes much wetter"

and
"DOE has stated that seismic and tectonic effects on the natural systems at Yucca Mountain will not significantly affect repository performance. Yucca Mountain lies in a region of ongoing tectonic deformation, but the deformation rates are too slow to significantly affect the mountain during the 10,000-year regulatory compliance period. Rises in the water table caused by seismic activity would be, at most, a few tens of meters and would not reach the repository. The fractured and faulted volcanic tuff that comprises Yucca Mountain reflects the occurrence of many earthquake-faulting and strong ground motion events during the last several million years, and the hydrological characteristics of the rock would not be changed significantly by seismic events that may occur in the next 10,000 years. The engineered barrier system components are robust under seismic loads and will provide substantial protection of the waste form from seepage water, even under severe seismic loading"

And
“Yucca Mountain is not in an area where continental plates meet, nor is it located near any volcanic hot spots. In fact, experts consider the Yucca Mountain region one of the least active volcanic fields in the western United States.”


While people may object to Yucca, it doesn't actually mean that nuclear energy is a none starter as its site specific. Also, the area used at Yucca is underground, so doesn't really impact on wildlife. Infact it can benefit wildlife, as the area is fenced off and has no other use for mankind, and can basically act as a safe long term nature reserve. Something that many such sites could become in the future in this regard, given that deep undergound storage is the preferred option for such wastes.

Further:
“The total area of the underground facility depends on the types of waste received, the amount of each type of waste received, the areal power density assumed, and the emplacement configuration chosen (horizontal or vertical emplacement). The areas range from about 1240 acres to about 1520 acres. For vertical emplacement of the reference inventory of spent fuel, 1520 acres are required. A significant finding of this report is the importance of low-heat-producing wastes (defense high-level waste, West Valley high-level waste, cladding hulls, transuranic waste, and spent fuel hardware) when calculating the area required for the underground facility. If other wastes are included and the spent fuel capacity is reduced consistent with a total capacity of 70,000 MTU, the area required will be smaller.”
Energy Citations Database (ECD) - - Document #59759

Note area is for underground, and can be multi layered.

An interesting read, albeit pro nuclear:
Energy Facts
“The main reason we have not implemented a permanent solution for nuclear waste is the fact that we do not need one.”(yet).

[Wobs]

Another impact from solar thermal is the effect of water on arid regions (eg. from regular washing of solar panels etc).
Soil salinity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“- Soil salinity which can be caused by human activities such as land clearing and aquaculture activities “
With regular washing of panels, salinity will increase in the area.

Expensive New Solar Project Announced in California - by Thomas Tanton - The Heartland Institute
“According to an October 2006 analysis by Tufts University economist Gilbert Metcalf, the cost of building a new conventional coal-fired power plant works out to about 3 1/2 cents per kWh. A solar thermal power plant, by contrast, costs about 12 cents per kWh, and a solar photovoltaic power plant costs 23 cents per kWh.”

"The levelized cost of building a new conventional coal-fired power plant--that is, the cost associated with building the plant and buying coal over the lifetime of the plant divided by the energy output that one might expect from the facility over its lifetime--works out to 3.53 cents per kilowatt hour," said Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
"By means of comparison, a solar thermal power plant costs 12.25 cents per kwh and a solar photovoltaic power plant costs 22.99 cents per kwh," Taylor noted.
"But that doesn't tell the whole story," Taylor added. "First of all, those cost estimates represent costs under current law, which distort prices via a panoply of subsidies and regulatory interventions. Second, those calculations disregard the costs associated with providing back-up power for when the sun isn't shining*. Third, the calculations ignore the costs associated with building sufficient transmission capacity to ensure that the power harnessed by solar power-producing facilities can get to load centers."

*Wobs notes: this will still be needed even with molten salt systems. They will still need the same grid capacity than before the solar system was built.

[Wobs]

An excert from the Solar Fraud (a book rather damning and one sided, but no more biased than your refs):

“The largest solar electric generating plant in the world is the 355-megawatt LUZ International ‘solar-thermal’ plant, located between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, which delivers its power to Southern California Edison. Not a photovoltaic plant, LUZ is a 100-acre field of parabolic [mirror] trough collectors in the Mojave Desert…”
Berman & O’Connor (1996)
The LUZ plant produces 355 MWe of electricity in full sunlight, as we will discuss more thoroughly on page 151. Their implication is clear: 355 MWe of electricity is delivered to Southern California Edison. However, the intensity — 355 MWe per 100 acres — amounts to 877 watts per square meter, just under the intensity of noontime sunlight falling on a surface that faces the sun. For the plant to deliver all that electricity, it would have to be nearly 100% efficient, which it certainly is not. Had the authors used SI units, they should have been able to spot the error in an instant.

Howard Hayden estimates Solar Two would need to take up 127 square miles to produce as much energy as a 1000-MWe power plant does in one year. (Solar Fraud, p. 187).

“Solar Two looks good on paper, and it is expected to provide steady baseload electricity as well as late afternoon peaking capacity, but the future of all the central solar generators is in doubt. They are expensive to build, their very scale escalates financial risks -- as with nuclear power -- and their massive height (in excess of 200 meters) may attract opposition”. Christopher Flavin and Nicholas Lenssen, Power Surge, p. 143.

“Solar Two took up quite a bit of land for the power being generated. There were 1,900 mirrored panels, each one over 100 square yards, and the results were only one megawatt per 17 acres of capacity. A natural gas facility taking up that much space would generate 150 times as much power. Robert Bradley. Why Renewable Energy is not cheap and not green. NCPA.”

“Central-station solar requires between five and 17 acres per megawatt, and more than 1,000 times the material of a gas-fired power plant. A 1,000 MW solar plant needs 35,000 tons of aluminum, 2 million tons of concrete, 7,500 tons of copper, 600,000 tons of steel, 75,000 tons of glass, 1,500 tons of chromium and titanium, and other materials. The energy that goes into the construction of a solar thermal-electric plant is, in fact, so large that it raises serious questions of whether the energy will ever be paid back. (Petr Beckmann. 1979. Why "Soft" Technology Will Not Be America's Energy Salvation (Golem Press), p. 6).”
But take heart:
“Despite all of my hazing of solar power, if there is ever a Manhattan energy project, solar and wind are the best and only long-range solutions. If energy, time, and money are misguidedly spent on coal liquefaction, oil/tar sands, methane hydrates, and other finite fossil fuel resources, which also increase global warming, not only do we risk polluting the air, water, and ground to the point of potential mass extinctions, we are only delaying the inevitable energy contraction, and even more people will be born in the meantime to fall off an even higher cliff.”


What you need to look into is recent history.
There have been many false dawns for this technology, with promises from the people behind it, and people in Government putting money behind it, and then finding they don't deliver on the promises.

I sincearly hope this time its for real, but we all most not hold our breathes, as we've seen this fall down before.

[Wobs]

Originally Posted by LMagic007

The Yucca Mountain ( Nevada USA ) nuclear waste repository land is of significant size, even though the actual zoned off waste dump may be comparatively small, overall it's land not available for other use. Not that this land necessarily would be used for other purposes, but this further demonstrates that the overall land consumed by the nuclear industry is far more than most of us might imagine.

Given the amount of energy production that's associated with Yucca, its insignificent in land use, and the fenced off area, as I've said can largely be used by nature, which I'd say is a benefit.

[LMagic007]

Originally Posted by Wobs

You'll warn me if you ever plan to use some numbers that are actually comparable won't you.


See my comment above.

One mine supplies uranium for many nuclear plants.
One Yucca Mountain installation services just about all nuclear plants in the US.

That's irrelevant, my point was about land use and Yucca Mountain shows significant land use, even if it is for the entire US. Also as stated US figures show 5 to 10 acres per MW of nuclear, so the figures you quoted are way out.

Originally Posted by Wobs

Your citing of Chernobyl is evidence of your ignorance.

Statements like that are just further evidence of your arrogance

Originally Posted by Wobs

Clean up of out of date nuclear sites "to cost £60billion". Thats for quite a number of sites:
Berkeley
Bradwell
Calder Hall
Capenhurst
Chapelcross
Culham
Dounreay
Dungeness A
Harwell
Hinkley Point A
Hunterston A
Oldbury
Sellafield
Sizewell A
Springfields
Trawsfynydd
Windscale
Winfrith
Wylfa

Just to keep you up to speed, modern plants must have a decommissioning plan, complete with a bond to pay for it. It's similar to most large industrial installations throughout Europe that are built these days, so citing decommissioning costs for some old plants is meangingless, as modern designs account for this, and therefore need to be more efficient in that respect. Anyone who says differently has an axe to grind.

One can only hope. I will believe it when I see it.

Originally Posted by Wobs

As for Yucca, well those Government opinions that you value for solar technology when it suits you has said (by geologists) that Yucca is a suitable site.

From the wiki page you put up we have:
"Most geologists that have worked at the site still maintain that the geology will adequately slow the rate of waste seepage to protect water supplies even if the local climate becomes much wetter"

and "DOE has stated that seismic and tectonic effects on the natural systems at Yucca Mountain will not significantly affect repository performance. Yucca Mountain lies in a region of ongoing tectonic deformation, but the deformation rates are too slow to significantly affect the mountain during the 10,000-year regulatory compliance period. Rises in the water table caused by seismic activity would be, at most, a few tens of meters and would not reach the repository. The fractured and faulted volcanic tuff that comprises Yucca Mountain reflects the occurrence of many earthquake-faulting and strong ground motion events during the last several million years, and the hydrological characteristics of the rock would not be changed significantly by seismic events that may occur in the next 10,000 years. The engineered barrier system components are robust under seismic loads and will provide substantial protection of the waste form from seepage water, even under severe seismic loading"

And
“Yucca Mountain is not in an area where continental plates meet, nor is it located near any volcanic hot spots. In fact, experts consider the Yucca Mountain region one of the least active volcanic fields in the western United States.”


While people may object to Yucca, it doesn't actually mean that nuclear energy is a none starter as its site specific. Also, the area used at Yucca is underground, so doesn't really impact on wildlife. Infact it can benefit wildlife, as the area is fenced off and has no other use for mankind, and can basically act as a safe long term nature reserve. Something that many such sites could become in the future in this regard, given that deep undergound storage is the preferred option for such wastes.

Further:
“The total area of the underground facility depends on the types of waste received, the amount of each type of waste received, the areal power density assumed, and the emplacement configuration chosen (horizontal or vertical emplacement). The areas range from about 1240 acres to about 1520 acres. For vertical emplacement of the reference inventory of spent fuel, 1520 acres are required. A significant finding of this report is the importance of low-heat-producing wastes (defense high-level waste, West Valley high-level waste, cladding hulls, transuranic waste, and spent fuel hardware) when calculating the area required for the underground facility. If other wastes are included and the spent fuel capacity is reduced consistent with a total capacity of 70,000 MTU, the area required will be smaller.”
Energy Citations Database (ECD) - - Document #59759

Note area is for underground, and can be multi layered.

An interesting read, albeit pro nuclear:
Energy Facts
“The main reason we have not implemented a permanent solution for nuclear waste is the fact that we do not need one.”(yet).

Yes I didn't say that Yucca was not suitable, I just raised the issue as background. I have never said nuclear energy was not viable, yet you present your case as if I had. The real issue of land use is that the acerage you sited is the immediate storage area. Far greater tracts land must be taken out of public use as a result of it though.

Again though regardless of this periphery argument, US government figures say 5 to 10 acres of land per megawat of nuclear power blowing your quoted blogger figures out of the water. I don't object to US goverment saying Yucca is stable, but again it's early days for that. Seeing is believing, though as mentioned the real issue pertaining to Mr Blogger is one of land use and his figures look to be way out.

[Wobs]

This guy really doesn’t like solar thermal technology:
Solar
“Epilogue
It looks like the most viable of the solar systems is the parabolic mirror central solar plants (SEGS). Photovoltaic systems on the roof tops or in a field appear to be too expensive and under performing. The SolarTower Power concept turned out to be a disaster.
Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico, intends to make New Mexico the US leader in renewable energy and clean technologies. He reported that New Mexico will deploy many solar-electric plants as well as wind turbines. He did say what kind of solar systems. I hope they research the subject and forgo the tower power concept. We will never hear about the solar systems perform in New Mexico after they have been operated awhile. The performance of these units will be well below that expected. Chances are they will never be built in the first place when they get an estimate of the capital cost. Environmentalists never seem to be realistic about renewable systems cost and performance.”

Each to their own I guess.